Prime Romances Part Two: History is Made at Night (1937)
Borzage's lovely melding of genres make up the most romantic film in classical Hollywood.
Charles Boyer as Paul Dumond and Jean Athur as Irene Vail in History is Made at Night
The second prime romance and essential Borzage is my favorite film of the 1930s. It is as romantic as classical Hollywood could get. Independent producer Walter Wanger had only the title and two pages of the script when he approached Borzage about directing the picture. “It’s a beautiful title, it’s an intriguing title,” Borzage wrote. “But where’s the story?” When production started, just over fifty pages of the script was complete. This didn’t stop Borzage, the crew, or even the cast from going full steam ahead (literally, as the ending indicates).
History is Made at Night (1937) is a perfectly paced masterwork of genre mishmash. The film jumps from melodrama to crime picture to romantic comedy to domestic abuse drama to disaster flick over the course of 97 minutes. Of course, with Borzage in charge, the highlight of the picture is the grand, and in this instance, transatlantic romance between Jean Arthur’s Irene Vail and Charles Boyer’s Frenchman, Paul Dumond. Irene is an American socialite stuck in an abusive, controlling marriage with a wealthy shipbuilder, Bruce Vail (a particularly sinister Colin Clive, of Frankenstein fame, who would die from tuberculosis just a few months after the film’s release). Paul is the headwaiter of a Paris restaurant, Château Bleu. However, in typical Borzage fashion, where men woo women with clever ruses (like Bill tricking Trina about his class in Man’s Castle) Paul does not disclose this fact to Irene on their first night together.
This night, where history and love is made, has a most unusual beginning. Shortly after Bruce reveals his newest ship, Princess Irene, its namesake files for divorce from the demanding, jealous husband. Bruce, refusing to comply, sends his chauffeur, Michael, to her room in Paris one night in hopes to catch her in a false pretense so that divorce is not possible. Paul happens to be next door, tucking a drunken friend into bed, when he hears a commotion. He looks through Irene’s window and finds Michael trying to kiss a resisting Irene. The quick-witted and impetuous Paul, in his first clever trick, jumps into the room and pretends to be robbing the place. Irene believes he is actually a thief taking her jewels, unaware that he’s actually rescuing her. Jean Arthur, always the brilliant comedic actress (though riddled with anxiety in real life), is incongruously hilarious in this scene. She’s nervous and delicate, mimicking his shushes (“I don’t know what I’m doing.”), walking frantically around the room, and groaning in her unique, high husky voice. The spontaneity of the scene is evident, but it never loses its effectiveness. Arthur’s bold choices somehow help the tension and Borzage’s deft hand already announces a strong intimacy between Paul and Irene.
He takes her with him, away from the apartment and Michael, and in a cab he drops his act. He returns her pearls to her neck and gives her jewels back. He explains that his presence, had he not pretended to be a thief, would have compromised her just as much as her chauffeur’s. A smart, gallant man and he happens to be the handsome and charming Charles Boyer! That’s what the movies are all about right there. Irene’s response consists of nervous laughter and many “Ohs” (“All I can seem to say is “Oh.”). The eponymous night continues to Paul’s restaurant, where again he puts on an act, convincing his loyal head chef Cesare (a very fun Leo Carillo) to keep the restaurant open for them. Without revealing his employment at the place, he takes Irene in for a romantic dinner, a sequence so breathtakingly Borzagian. It helps that Boyer’s confidence and Arthur’s uneasiness collide so harmoniously here, making not only history in this romantic night, but a heaven of sorts. Paul is sweet and endearing, Irene is ethereal and fragile. Under Borzage’s direction, the personas of both Boyer and Arthur reach their pinnacle.
To lighten things up and comfort Irene, Paul gets a marker and draws a face on his hand, with his thumb as a mouth, and calls it Coco. Coco talks separately to Irene, asking her the questions that Paul is afraid to ask. Irene, of course, is responsive to Coco, dropping some of her guard (like Cameron Diaz being impressed by Mr. Napkin Head in The Holiday). According to Dan Callahan in his Criterion essay on the film, “this playacting is exactly the sort of childlike whimsy guaranteed to win the heart of Arthur’s Irene. Arthur’s favorite role was Peter Pan, which she finally played onstage in 1950, and she loved the idea of a utopia where adult fears, unkindness, and complications could be sanded away.” Irene, playing along with a new glee so long suppressed in her, tells Coco to tell Paul to ask her to dance. Paul, putting Coco to his ear, listens to the demand before putting his hand down, and in a wonderful move by Boyer, looks at the band as if they had just started playing music (they hadn’t) and turns to Irene, “Shall we dance?” If you can watch this scene without a smile on your face then you’re not human. So they dance and when Irene keeps tripping in her slippers, she throws them off, letting loose, tearing down her walls, and falling in love.
Meanwhile, Bruce is recovering from his failure to compromise Irene and plots to keep her trapped in their marriage. Even after his own diabolical scheme, he’s convinced the man who kidnapped her was not a thief and was there when Michael came in. Michael plays into this and lies about finding Paul and Irene together, but Bruce kills him, planning now to frame this “thief” for murder. Back at the restaurant, Paul and Irene kiss and prevaricate about their sudden love for each other. They plan to meet up later in the day and take a carriage back to Irene’s place. After some more kisses in soft-focus shots and spectacular close-ups and a promise to say “Oh” forever, Irene departs, humming with happiness, before finding Bruce and some policemen in the apartment. After Irene tries to fabricate a story about being brutally kidnapped, they tell her that Michael the chauffeur is dead. Bruce, already not buying her story, finds the “stolen” pearls on her neck ("Now why in the world would a thief give a lady back her jewels?”). It’s looking like Paul and Irene’s romance is indeed both history and lasting one night. Bruce, however, believes it’s been an ongoing affair for some time now. To protect Paul from the guillotine (still France’s death penalty at the time), Irene stays with Bruce and sails back to New York with him.
Colin Clive as Bruce Vail and Arthur
It’s here that Borzage reveals Paul as the headwaiter of the restaurant where he spent all night with Irene, now filled with people; he’s all business as the headwaiter, clearly efficient and good at his job. He names one of the dishes “salade chiffonade a la Miss America.” Cesare is there too, bitter about the night before and chiding Paul about his new love interest. At one point, an aging waiter spills a drink on a reproachful lady. Paul fires the old man before meeting him in the kitchen and telling him to wait until the lady leaves before going back out to work again. It’s an adorable scene and one that further shows Paul’s good heart. That heart is soon shattered when he learns from a newspaper that Irene has returned to America with Bruce. Irene tells Paul over the phone to never find her. On the ship between continents, Bruce torments Irene about loving and leaving Paul. Jean Arthur this time flashes her spectacular melodramatic acting chops. I can’t specify enough how captivating she is in this picture. The way Borzage lights her certainly helps, but Arthur's natural ability on screen is especially impossible to overlook here. This scene takes a darker turn when Bruce gets physical with Irene and Bruce becomes more than just a typical Hollywood villain. Clive gives the character some nuance, he’s a disturbed man and the paranoia he feels stems from his self-loathing. Of all the impending threats to lovers in Borzage films, Clive’s Bruce might be the most dangerous and relentless. Fortunately for this Borzage couple, even a mad man with wealth and power can be overcome by the forces of love.
Paul, convinced Irene is in trouble, decides to go to New York to find her. Cesare, ever the supportive friend and chef, tags along. They arrive in the big city (“Look at them sky wipers!”) and immediately take over the management of a fancy restaurant, Victor’s, promising to improve the establishment and increase the patronage. Paul, as the new headwaiter, has one table permanently reserved for Irene, with its flowers replaced daily. He’s hoping that she will hear of Victor’s popularity and have dinner there one night. In the meantime, Irene has separated from Bruce in New York but is forced to go back to him once again when news reaches her that she is wanted in Paris as a witness in a murder trial. They got the man, so they say. She goes to Bruce, thinking that Paul is the man detained in Paris, and walks in on him looking at a new painted portrait of her. “Well, what do you think of your portrait?” he asks. “I had it painted from a cherished photograph and I’m going to hang it in the royal suite of the Princess Irene.” Irene replies, “By the neck until it dies?” Geez.
So if she agrees to go back to France with him, since he has to be there to see the Princess Irene arrive on its maiden voyage, then he’ll save Paul from the guillotine. But first, dinner at Victor’s! Irene’s joy and laughter at seeing Paul waiting their table is delightful (again, thanks to Arthur) but Paul thinks she’s laughing at him. She squares things up with him on a late visit to the closed restaurant and finally the lovers are reunited. More cute romantic scenes ensue, Boyer’s and Arthur’s chemistry is forever watchable. However, there’s an innocent man being held for a murder he did not commit in Paris. Borzage plays some more trickery here. The couple walks to a window advertising trips to Tahiti before panning to a newspaper headline about the Princess Irene. Then it cuts to an establishing shot of a ship at sea. The name on its bow? Princess Irene. Borzage seems to say that the best kind of love is not just a love between two people, but a love shared with the world.
Unfortunately, this ship is owned by a rich maniac who wants to break an unspecified record. When he learns Paul and Irene are on the ship, he orders the captain to continue full speed ahead despite warnings of heavy fog. During shooting Walter Wanger said the film should end with a shipwreck and again, this spontaneous choice is clear but also welcome. Now it’s a disaster flick, Titanic style. The ship hits an iceberg and suddenly Paul and Irene find themselves on a sinking ship, getting ready to die in each other’s arms. A nice crane shot showing the ship slowly sinking pushes in on Paul and Irene. They ask each other about their childhoods, what Irene looked like with braces, everything before their short-lived life together is lost. Passengers wearing life jackets begin singing “Nearer My God to Thee.” A case could be made that the film’s end would be better if the lovers did sink whilst holding each other. But this is Hollywood and in classical Hollywood, thanks partly to Borzage, romance was in its prime. It’s announced that the ship is in no danger of sinking anymore and everyone is going to be fine.
For this picture, and with it being a Borzage joint (however, he did have some sad endings, especially 1940’s The Mortal Storm), I think the happy ending is the best choice. It makes too much sense for Paul and Irene, after all they’ve been through, all the risks they took. Besides, it’s not that happy. They still have to convince the French courts of Paul’s innocence. But wait! When the press already reports that the ship has sunk, a guilt-ridden Bruce commits suicide and leaves a note confessing the murder of Michael. The Princess Irene failed on her maiden voyage, but Irene’s forever voyage with Paul is going to survive many more nights.
This beautiful and lovely go-for-broke story of genre salad works for the romance it’s depicting and also reveals the ways in which we take chances romantically in real life. Like the production of History is Made at Night, we just go for it. Sometimes it doesn’t work and sometimes, like History is Made at Night, it does. It may be a mess getting to that night where love is found, but one must keep up the adventure, take all kinds of turns, and jump on the chance to make history. Life isn’t a script and Borzage demonstrates that both cinema and love can be just as great if we choose to figure it out as we go.